Tornadoes · United States · Texas · 2012
EF0 tornado, Lexington, Texas, October 13, 2012
This EF0 tornado ran 0.2 miles across Lee County on October 13, 2012, touching down at 6:50 PM CDT and reaching 20 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $5,000 of property damage.
The rating scale
Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Enhanced Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.
EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mph
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
EF2111 to 135 mph
Considerable damage. Roofs torn off well-built houses, frame homes shifted on their foundations, mobile homes destroyed, large trees snapped or uprooted, cars lifted off the ground.
EF3136 to 165 mph
Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.
EF4166 to 200 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
EF5over 200 mph
Incredible damage. Strong frame houses swept off their foundations, car-sized missiles thrown more than 100 meters, steel-reinforced concrete badly damaged, high-rise buildings deformed.
Unrated
The survey recorded a tornado but could not put a number on it, most often because it crossed open country and damaged nothing a rating can be read from.
The record
- Rating
- EF0
- Date
- October 13, 2012
- Touchdown
- 6:50 PM CDT (23:50 UTC)
- Lifted
- 6:52 PM CDT (23:52 UTC)
- On the ground
- 2 minutes
- Path length
- 0.2 miles (0.3 km)
- Path width
- 20 yards (18 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $5,000
- County
- Lee County
- Touchdown point
- 30.402, -96.957
- Lift-off point
- 30.405, -96.956
- Record number
- 1210131750-01
What the Weather Service recorded
An upper level trough and cold front moved through South Central Texas and produced isolated thunderstorms that produced large hail and damaging wind gusts.
A small EF0 tornado touched down just southeast of Lexington. A combination of eye witnesses, storm chasers, and a NWS survey concluded that it produced little damage in mainly rural areas southeast of Lexington. A few trees were damaged near the area but little in the way of a path could be found. There was minor roof damage to a house but inconclusive whether it was tornado damage or microburst damage. Most tree damage was found near the intersection of county roads 405 and 408. A few other brief touchdowns may have occurred along the storm path in Lee County but no major damage was found.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
10 minutes of warning. NWS EWX issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:40 UTC, 10 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:15 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 23:40 UTC | 00:15 UTC | Tornado Warning | EWX |
Every warning and watch covering the touchdown point that day, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service products. Lead time is measured from the issue of the warning in force to the touchdown time in the database, both of which were recorded to the minute by different people.
The forecast that day
The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 19:51 UTC.
SPC's Day 1 convective outlook as it stood when the tornado began, read at the touchdown point. The same archive is on the radar archive.
The air that afternoon
The radiosonde launches on either side of the tornado, from the nearest station that was launching then, drawn and analyzed the way Storm Lab does: the same diagram, the same parcel and shear definitions SPC's mesoanalysis uses.
Fort Worth, TX (KFWD), 12:00Z
11.8 hours before the tornado, 272 km from the path. October 13, 2012.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 184 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -330 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 493 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 732 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 25 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 33 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 202 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 187 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.2
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.0 K/km
Fort Worth, TX (KFWD), 00:00Z
0.2 hours after it, 272 km from the path. October 14, 2012.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 1344 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -23 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 2406 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 759 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 54 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 36 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 324 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 345 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 3.1
- Supercell composite
- 17.2
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.9 K/km
The surface observations
Giddings-Lee_cnty_arpt (GYB), 26 km from the path, in the two hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Temp (°F) | Dew point (°F) | Wind | Gust (kt) | Pressure (mb) | Weather |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21:55 UTC | 78.8 | 71.6 | 150° 10 kt | 14 | 1013.9 | -RA |
| 22:15 UTC | 78.8 | 71.6 | 160° 7 kt | 16 | 1014.2 | -RA |
| 22:35 UTC | 77 | 71.6 | 170° 4 kt | 1014.6 | RA | |
| 22:55 UTC | 77 | 71.6 | 140° 6 kt | 15 | 1014.2 | -RA |
| 23:15 UTC | 78.8 | 71.6 | 170° 9 kt | 14 | 1014.2 | -RA |
| 23:35 UTC | 78.8 | 69.8 | 180° 10 kt | 22 | 1014.2 | |
| 23:55 UTC | 78.8 | 69.8 | 170° 13 kt | 22 | 1014.2 | |
| 00:15 UTC | 78.8 | 69.8 | 170° 10 kt | 15 | 1014.6 | |
| 00:35 UTC | 78.8 | 69.8 | 150° 7 kt | 14 | 1014.9 | |
| 00:55 UTC | 77 | 69.8 | 160° 8 kt | 1015.2 | ||
| 01:15 UTC | 77 | 69.8 | 150° 6 kt | 1015.2 | ||
| 01:35 UTC | 77 | 69.8 | 160° 7 kt | 14 | 1015.6 |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.
The radar
The Ft Hood radar (KGRK), 54 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:51 UTC.
Open the radar archive at this moment, over the track
Reflectivity and velocity, decoded from the Level II archive in the browser. Volumes take a few seconds to open the first time.
What was reported nearby
Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Report | Where | County | Remark |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23:50 UTC | TORNADO | 5 Se Lexington | Lee, TX | TORNADO REPORTED BY 2 SOURCES NO DETAILS YET |
| 00:19 UTC | TORNADO | 13 Sw Caldwell | Lee, TX | RAIN WRAPPED TORNADO MOVING NE AT 15 MPH LOCATED 4 MILES WEST OF THE SPOTTER WHO WAS LOCATED 7 MILES NW OF DIMEBOX. |
| 00:37 UTC | TORNADO | 4 W Caldwell | Burleson, TX | SPOTTER REPORTED RAIN WRAPPED TORNADO TO THE TX DPS. |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2012 tornado in TexasEvery tornado in Texas since 1950Warnings in force in Texas nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of October 13, 2012
4 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| October 13 | 5:46 PM CDT | EF1 | Carter, OK | 5.1 | 75 | 2 | ||
| October 13 | 8:53 PM CDT | EF0 | Greene, MO | 0.5 | 100 | $25,000 | ||
| October 13 | 9:36 PM CDT | EF1 | Benton, AR | 12.5 | 450 | 2 | $100,000 | |
| October 13 | 10:39 PM CDT | EF1 | Logan, AR | 0.2 | 45 | $20,000 |
What this means
Ratings are the survey's, read off the damage rather than measured; the rating scale is above. Tornado counts rise through the record as reporting improved, so a year in the 1950s is not comparable with one today except for the strongest tornadoes, which were always noticed.
Sources
NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.